skatingtripods wrote:What is so mother fucking hard about bouncing an 0-2 pitch or throwing it at eye fucking level?

Incredible.

Why pussyfoot around Perez instead of going at him and giving Fielder his shot?

Galley Boys are slop on top of a so-so burger and a bun you coulde get from a Covneninet food mart generic pack. They the Antoine Joubert of burgers; soft, sloppy, oozing grease and cheap sauce and extremely overrated by a biased fan base. Proof that if you throw enough cheap sauce shit on a burger you still can't overcome the lame burger. -JB

bookelly wrote:Hats off to the Tigers. They are a much better team than us. I would be surprised if anyone can beat them come playoffs. They are just to strong an offense. With that starting pitching and those two BP guys...nobody will beat them.

skatingtripods wrote:What is so mother fucking hard about bouncing an 0-2 pitch or throwing it at eye fucking level?

Incredible.

Why pussyfoot around Perez instead of going at him and giving Fielder his shot?

I think Shaw was out of gas. Had thrown 40 pitches and was in his third inning of relief. I agree that you need to go after Perez, but he just couldn't locate.

I do, for what it's worth, agree with going after Fielder instead of walking him to face Victor. Rzepczynski had him down 0-2 and the strike two swing from Fielder was atrocious. He just made a terrible mistake 0-2.

Easy to second guess now (though I would have had second guessed immediately had I been at the game or home watching it), but they might win this game 3-2 if Francona goes to the pen for the 8th. Why not Shaw there? Jackson, Hunter, Cabrera and Shaw's very useful against RHB. Hill for Fielder and Martinez if it gets that far.

A God Damn dead man would understand that if a minor league bus in any city took a real sharp right turn, a Zack McCalister would likely fall out. - Lead Pipe

Unlike Bostonians, some of us have lives and can't be on every minute of every game.

Some people in MA listen to every game, all game. It's just that this MA resident is busy attending to some long-neglected work around the house, trying to get it ready to go on the market and get the hell out of this life-sucking state. Hoping next spring we can sing "freedom"!

This. Loss. Hurt. Like a Stubbs, er, stab to the heart.

I've tried 'em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball.~~~Annie Savoy-"Bull Durham"

bookelly wrote:Hats off to the Tigers. They are a much better team than us. I would be surprised if anyone can beat them come playoffs. They are just to strong an offense. With that starting pitching and those two BP guys...nobody will beat them.

skatingtripods wrote:What is so mother fucking hard about bouncing an 0-2 pitch or throwing it at eye fucking level?

Incredible.

Why pussyfoot around Perez instead of going at him and giving Fielder his shot?

I think Shaw was out of gas. Had thrown 40 pitches and was in his third inning of relief. I agree that you need to go after Perez, but he just couldn't locate.

I do, for what it's worth, agree with going after Fielder instead of walking him to face Victor. Rzepczynski had him down 0-2 and the strike two swing from Fielder was atrocious. He just made a terrible mistake 0-2.

Easy to second guess now (though I would have had second guessed immediately had I been at the game or home watching it), but they might win this game 3-2 if Francona goes to the pen for the 8th. Why not Shaw there? Jackson, Hunter, Cabrera and Shaw's very useful against RHB. Hill for Fielder and Martinez if it gets that far.

But you got Salazar, still running it up there in the high nineties. He struck out Cabrera the three previous at bats. Not sute what better match-up there was at that point. I understand him never throwing that many pitches, but he was NOT out of gas. He just ran into a PLAYA. What can you do. Cabrera could hit a dinger off Chuck Norris, not sure Shaw's gonna scare him.

Agreed. It took him 4 tries, but Miggy finally locked on on that heat.

First time actually watching Salazar pitch. It's official, I have a total man crush on him.

Trevor Bauer should watch this kid pitch, stop over analyzing every micron of his delivery and get up there and let his talent take over. He is never going to get out of his own way and let his talent do the talking.

skatingtripods wrote:What is so mother fucking hard about bouncing an 0-2 pitch or throwing it at eye fucking level?

Incredible.

Why pussyfoot around Perez instead of going at him and giving Fielder his shot?

I think Shaw was out of gas. Had thrown 40 pitches and was in his third inning of relief. I agree that you need to go after Perez, but he just couldn't locate.

I do, for what it's worth, agree with going after Fielder instead of walking him to face Victor. Rzepczynski had him down 0-2 and the strike two swing from Fielder was atrocious. He just made a terrible mistake 0-2.

Easy to second guess now (though I would have had second guessed immediately had I been at the game or home watching it), but they might win this game 3-2 if Francona goes to the pen for the 8th. Why not Shaw there? Jackson, Hunter, Cabrera and Shaw's very useful against RHB. Hill for Fielder and Martinez if it gets that far.

But you got Salazar, still running it up there in the high nineties. He struck out Cabrera the three previous at bats. Not sute what better match-up there was at that point. I understand him never throwing that many pitches, but he was NOT out of gas. He just ran into a PLAYA. What can you do. Cabrera could hit a dinger off Chuck Norris, not sure Shaw's gonna scare him.

Yep- He gets the ball from me there too. Unquestionably and unapologetically.

Tip your hat to the best hitter of the game, who looked 99mph in a certain spot and, unlike most of the guys on the Indians team in critical spots in the order, he didn't miss it. He didn't miss it, foul it off or anything else. He hit it out.

Again- Tigers would not trade a single guy 1-5 in their lineup for a single guy 1-5 in Indians lineup. And I wouldn't if I were them either.

Bourn, Cabrera, and Santana went 2-for-18. You can't beat the Tigers with that kind of production from our main guys.

Cabrera is clearly putting too much pressure on himself now that he's hitting cleanup. He's popping everything up, which tells me he's overswinging and trying for HR's. He needs to play within himself, forget he's hitting cleanup, go for line drives, and take any homers that come. That's his game. It works for Brantley.

How does a guy who throws 103 have an ERA over 5.00? He also got his slider over which made him unhittable. Meanwhile we've got Shaw and Scrabble.

I agree you got with Salazar in the 8th. He was under 100 pitches and he's got better stuff than anybody in the pen.

With Danny replacing Ubaldo in the rotation next year this team will be even better, especially if they upgrade the bullpen, which has to be Job One.

The Tribe is nine games under .500 against the Tigers and 19 games over against everybody else. Very frustrating, but Peeks is right, the talent gap is huge. I can't believe we've hung with them this long.

And yeah, he's clearly a better option than Shaw, which wasn't my point. My point was that he was in new territory this season against some of the league's best hitters. Fourth time through the lineup. Season-high pitch count in a high-stress environment. Etc., etc.

You just got the kid a run after he worked out of a jam in the 7th. He gave you everything you needed. Turn it over to somebody else.

Ultimately, the problem here is that we don't have a trustworthy arm in the bullpen.

A God Damn dead man would understand that if a minor league bus in any city took a real sharp right turn, a Zack McCalister would likely fall out. - Lead Pipe

Prince Fielder is a very fine hitter but he ain't Cabrera....any thoughts to just putting Cabrera on in the 8th and bringing in Hill or eye chart to pitch to Fielder there?? I know it breaks all conventional wisdom on what you do...putting winning run on base etc, In the end it likely doesn't matter as it's simply a case of they're better. I did prefer Salazar to any righty in the pen to pitch to Cabrera there, but maybe I would have preferred one of the lefties to pitch to Prince than anyone on the staff pitching to Cabrera in that situation.

And yeah, he's clearly a better option than Shaw, which wasn't my point. My point was that he was in new territory this season against some of the league's best hitters. Fourth time through the lineup. Season-high pitch count in a high-stress environment. Etc., etc.

You just got the kid a run after he worked out of a jam in the 7th. He gave you everything you needed. Turn it over to somebody else.

Ultimately, the problem here is that we don't have a trustworthy arm in the bullpen.

I'm not going to say overmatch, that might be excessive - but he was pretty darn close on the first two hitters in the 8th. At that point he's pitching to anyone on GGE. Hunter get the hit, and you've got yourself a circumstance. Might have been 4th time thru, but it was 4th time ever, and the first three you got the best possible result.

Again, the guy looked as good in that 8th as just about any inning. And just as strong as well.

We can agree to diasagree, but watching that inning, I woulda had a caniption should they handed the ball over.

Tonight was so miserable. Between the 8-0 deficit after 3.5 and The Jake becoming Comerica Park South, it almost forced me to break my cardinal rule of never leaving early. I got rewarded for staying with a Ryan Raburn appearance on the mound.

A God Damn dead man would understand that if a minor league bus in any city took a real sharp right turn, a Zack McCalister would likely fall out. - Lead Pipe

Galley Boys are slop on top of a so-so burger and a bun you coulde get from a Covneninet food mart generic pack. They the Antoine Joubert of burgers; soft, sloppy, oozing grease and cheap sauce and extremely overrated by a biased fan base. Proof that if you throw enough cheap sauce shit on a burger you still can't overcome the lame burger. -JB

skatingtripods wrote:Tonight was so miserable. Between the 8-0 deficit after 3.5 and The Jake becoming Comerica Park South, it almost forced me to break my cardinal rule of never leaving early. I got rewarded for staying with a Ryan Raburn appearance on the mound.

Reminds me of Comiskey back in the mid to late 90s after the Sox threw up the White Flag. There were always more Tribe fans there than Sox fans. It was magnificent.

And please, please, please.... let's really hope and count on that wildcard spot so at least we get a game against another mediocre team before having to play someone that's just better than this Indians team in every regard.

People act like 7 games with almost 50 to play is a huge deal. It ain't to a good team that actually can beat the team ahead of it and isn't completely outclassed by it.

The only shame in that is that people can't see it or admit to it so they'll make excuses for it.

They got humbled by the best team in the American League, possibly all of baseball. Now that the Tigers have sorted out their bullpen issues and Victor's not hitting .220, I'm not sure anybody can beat them. They have the best 1-4 rotation of any playoff team, and getting Sanchez, Verlander, and Scherzer twice in a series will be very difficult for any lineup to deal with.

That being said, we really should have split this series. Should have won Monday and had plenty of chances on Wednesday. And yes, the Indians have been awful against Detroit and the AL East, but they are 9-1 against Texas and Oakland, who aren't exactly dregs. They can play with good teams. Detroit's just bordering on elite.

A God Damn dead man would understand that if a minor league bus in any city took a real sharp right turn, a Zack McCalister would likely fall out. - Lead Pipe

After tonight's loss the Tribe is 6-29 against the Yankees, Red Sox, Rays, and Tigers and 56-25 against everybody else.

They're the '62 Mets when they play the elite teams and the '27 Yankees against the bad and mediocre teams.

In theory they have a good shot at the playoffs since only 3 of their remaining 46 games are against those four teams that have been killing them. But I agree - even if they get in they have no chance of winning 3 of 5 against anybody.

Unfortunately, it looks like the wheels are starting to come off. Kluber is out, probably for the year. Kazmir got slammed for five runs before getting an out tonight. And the offense still sucks, although it's no disgrace to get shut down by Verlander, Fister, Scherzer, and Weaver.

I like the new lineup with Raburn and Gomes getting the at-bats Reynolds was wasting for the last three months. Maybe once they get back to playing the non-elite teams again they can get another roll going and make it interesting for a while longer.

This is a team that is good enough to make the playoffs. Nobody to my knowledge has annointed them world series contenders. We knew this team wasnt going to win a world series but it was an important year in making strides in getting to that point in the next couple of years. As far as I can tell they are doing what most thought or playing a little better. Im excited and happy they have a shot at the playoffs and am going to enjoy it, then if they were to get in, just enjoy it for what it is. Playoff baseball in Cleveland in October.

This team has proven it is streaky (due to shotty defense and an unreliable bullpen) this year. (Plus the pitchers the last week have not helped). But this team has also proved it has the ability to right the ship and prevent a collapse in these streaks.

I just want to stay in it long enough for Masterson, McAllister, and hopefully Kluber, to start big, meaningful games and the relievers to pitch in very high-leverage spots in important games. That experience is invaluable.

A God Damn dead man would understand that if a minor league bus in any city took a real sharp right turn, a Zack McCalister would likely fall out. - Lead Pipe

I'm with you guys. As disappointing as the past week has been, and regardless of what happens the rest of the way, it's not like this is a one shot window into the playoffs. This team is positioned for the next several seasons, and one could even argue that we will be even better positioned next year. Other than Smith, we really aren't losing anybody (And who's to say we don't bring him back?). The young kids are getting their first taste of contention now, so maybe they'll be able to better handle the pressure next time around. Gomes, Kluber, and Salazar have all emerged as some pretty important pieces, and Swisher will have the whole off-season to rest his shoulder. Lindor should make an appearance by the end of the season, too. If they get nothing else the rest of this season other than experience, it'll be a good lesson.

That being said, I would still love to see them go on a crazy tear and catch the Tigers.

I agree. It's been a tough stretch with the sweep and the injuries, but maybe this team has the guts to get up off the mat and throw some punches. They may not win, but i'll be proud if they fight to the end.

Kinda reminds me of last season's CBJ team, not the most talented by any stretch, but they played hard and earned respect from a wavering fan base.